TEHRAN – This column features excerpts from the editorials, commentaries, and news articles of the world’s leading newspapers and magazines.

Stuxnet scare
There has been a great deal of hype about and possibly deliberate misinformation about the Stuxnet computer virus that supposedly affected Iran’s nuclear program. It has been said by software and security experts that the computer worm is so sophisticated and expensive to produce that it could only have been devised by a state agency, the suggestion being that the United States or Israel is responsible.
That the virus is state-devised is the line taken by Iranian Foreign Ministry following reports that start-up at the country’s Russian-built nuclear reactor at Bushehr had been delayed because of infection. It described the virus as a “new game of soft warfare” by it enemies.
… The virus had also affected large numbers of computer systems in India, Pakistan, Indonesia and China. In the latter, it is now reported to have infected millions of computers, and who knows where else it is active.
China has said that despite infecting millions of computers, there is no need to worry because Stuxnet does not cause any real damage. The line from Tehran is much the same. According to the Iranians, Stuxnet is no longer a problem. They have been “able to neutralize the enemy’s objective”.
If that is so, then it cannot be that sophisticated. The idea that it is a super-complex, state-to-state cyber-war virus begins to look somewhat shaky.
(Arab News)
Alien planets: otherworldly joys
The rocky planet freshly identified in orbit around the star Gliese 581 could indeed be a potential home for life, but nobody should contemplate relocation just yet. At speeds possible with rocket technology, a voyage to Gliese 581, in the constellation Libra, would take about 200,000 years. As a home away from a home, it won't work. But the planet now known as Gliese 581 g is a reminder of the extraordinary rewards of astronomy.
Cosmological science begins with the Copernican principle that there is nothing special about the solar system. Four centuries after Copernicus, this principle permitted a chain of observation, experiment and deduction that within half a human lifetime confirmed that the universe began with a big bang 13.7 billion years ago. Robotic missions to Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn showed that if life could begin on Earth, then it could surely happen on any planet of a similar fabric and mass, orbiting a similar star in a zone not too hot and not too cold for liquid water. Giant telescopes counted the stars: 100bn or more in this galaxy, one of 100bn galaxies. But the solar system appeared to be alone of its kind. The first extra-solar planet – or exoplanet – was identified in 1995: a kind of hot Jupiter, circling close to the star 51 Pegasi 50 light years away. Since then, astronomers have found 490 exoplanets but ""seen"" none of them.
(The Guardian)
A Message for China
China and President Obama have a lot to think about after the House voted, overwhelmingly, on Wednesday to give the Obama administration expanded authority to impose tariffs on nearly all Chinese imports.
Protectionist impulses run far too strong on Capitol Hill, especially in an election year. But China’s aggressive undervaluation of its currency is providing a hugely unfair boost to its exports — hurting some American exports, but doing a lot more damage to others and hindering the recovery around the world.
If the House vote grabs Beijing’s attention, that would be a good thing. We are skeptical that punitive tariffs are the answer. They wouldn’t provide all that much redress to American companies because at this point, except for steel and a few other products, most of the things Americans buy from China: TVs, refrigerators, toys — are no longer made here.
(New York Times)
Fresh tensions
Pakistan-U.S. relations have been, and it seems always will be, fraught with a certain degree of tension and mutual suspicion. But the spike in tensions between the two countries in recent weeks appears to be out of the ordinary.
CIA chief Leon Panetta is believed to have delivered a tough message to his interlocutors in Islamabad and Rawalpindi, warning that Pakistan will have to learn to accept U.S./NATO raids from across the Pakistan-Afghan border and ever-increasing drone strikes if Pakistan continues to do little, in America’s reckoning, to shut down the safe havens Afghan-centric militants enjoy in Fata. For its part, the Pakistan Army has conveyed its deep unhappiness with the helicopter raids in particular. That the NATO supply routes through Pakistan have come under attack and the border crossing at Torkham has been closed appear to be part of a larger scheme of Pakistani ‘protest’ against aggressive U.S. action.
(Dawn